The basics of American policing, chasing and catching
criminals, hasn’t changed much in the last 200 years, but technology has inspired
various nuances to the tactics of “chasing” and “catching” criminals. Patrol officers see “crime fighting” as a
very basic and simple process, while the managers of policing agencies
complicate the process by trying to reinvent the wheel for various political
and self-serving reasons. Much has been
made about the perceived ability of law enforcement to prevent and reduce
crime. Politicians, police chiefs and
public safety directors, mistakenly believe they have the ability to drastically
affect crime, while more rational experts declare that law enforcement can only
affect crime trends on the margins.
CompStat (Comparative Statistics) is a relatively new way of
managing police resources and tactics largely due to the increased use of
computer technology. NYPD first began to
employee this management method in the 1990’s and claimed amazing results in reducing
overall crime in New York City. Based on
NYPD’s perceived success from the crime statistic numbers they proudly
displayed, numerous other agencies began adopting CompStat and moving away from
the Community Policing model that so many agencies were utilizing. Was the perceived success of CompStat real or
manufactured? Can crime, a problem of
the heart, be reduced with better data and deployment of street officers, a
problem of management?
Public Safety Director Frank Straub is an advocate of the
CompStat model’s success and began installing this crime management system in
Indianapolis when he was hired by Mayor Ballard. CompStat is “data driven” and holds street
level officers on up to the chief accountable for the required crime reduction
expectations. John A. Eterno and Eli B.
Silverman co-wrote a book titled, “The Crime Numbers Game: Management by
Manipulation” in 2012. This book lays
waste to the CompStat model of policing and cites, “What began as a focus of
reducing crime and the fear of crime has shifted to managing or manipulating
the numbers…..while some numbers are important, they should not become the
defining characteristic of policing.”
Indy…Welcome to CompStat!
There are a number of problems that arise in agencies using
the CompStat policing model: 1) CompStat can hamper the sense of
interconnection between law enforcement officers. 2) It reduces officer
discretion and causes officers to make arrests and write tickets for offenses
they otherwise might not – due to the focus on data and work product. 3) It also limits officers’ ability to uphold
half of their job responsibilities, “protecting life, liberty and property”; in
essence upholding the Constitution (which doesn’t require arrest, ticket and
report data). 4) It “increases tension among management and
the rank-and-file while at the same time reducing morale and adding to the
pressures already there due to the nature of police work.” CompStat greatly exacerbates the rift between
management and the street cops. 5) It
encourages and rewards “micro-management”.
6) It creates an atmosphere of
fear and intimidation that pushes command staff, who are under constant
pressure to produce ever decreasing crime trends, to falsify crime statistics. Simply stated, CompStat may have been
initiated in New York with good intentions, but the years of focusing on data
has wrecked that police department’s integrity and is slowly doing the same to
other agencies. Below you will find a
lengthy lawsuit filed by Ofc. Schoolcraft of NYPD against his own agency. His story is detailed in “The Crime Numbers
Game” and displays the overt abuse he endured at the hands of NYPD in order to
keep him quiet about the manipulation of crime statistics. I highly doubt he is or will be the only whistle blower that has faced or will face the destructive results of
CompStat. Indy….Welcome to CompStat!
“The Crime Numbers Game” is a revealing true story about the
problem with data driven crime management models and why agencies should focus
more on Community Policing models.
Somewhere between CompStat and Community Policing is the proper model of
policing. Eterno and Silverman make a
number of recommendations to help NYPD correct their destructive policing model
course. First and foremost they demand
NYPD end micromanagement because “iron control from Headquarters stifles
efficiency and effectiveness.” Officers
should be given the opportunity to use their discretion while patrolling an
area/community they intimately know, which would result with more
effective/surgical arrests and enforcement of laws. Officers must be given enough manpower to
properly staff districts and beats so they can engage the community and learn
about specific problems, instead of running from one dispatch location to
another, never acquiring usable information.
“Fundamentally, good policing relies on our police officers having the
courage to use their professional discretion, confront risk, and make decisions
in the knowledge that their leaders will support sound decision-making even
when things go wrong.”
The truth about American policing is stated so luminously by
D. Bayley (1994 Police for the Future)…”The police do not prevent crime. This is one of the best kept secrets of
modern life….In democratic countries all over the world, then, there is a sense
of crisis about public security. And at
the center of this crisis are the police, who promise to protect us but do not
appear to be able to do so.” Most
officers make every effort to perform and excel at their noble profession. Officers are either hampered or encouraged by
their leaders; but management must realize it isn’t always just about crime
reduction; there are other factors involved.
Many officers hold a deep seated resentment and a feeling of alienation
from what they perceive as the self-serving upper management of their agencies
who are motivated by rationalistic efficiency criteria that appease
politicians, the media and the courts.
Indy…Welcome to CompStat. Change
has come to American policing.
"Officers must be given enough manpower to properly staff districts and beats so they can engage the community and learn about specific problems, instead of running from one dispatch location to another, never acquiring usable information."
ReplyDeleteAnd this week it was announced that our Police Department is taking police out of my neighborhood and putting them in the "higher crime areas". So I pay for Police protection, but only receive the "county sheriff" response, where someone drives out to my neighborhood ONLY when called....and it may take a while.
This is WRONG!
I also noticed the constant change in Executive Police staff, including replacement of the Crime Stat Commander...and Assistant Chief for what was rumored to be failing to falsify crime stats for Straub. Welcome the NY way, Indy!
-Wait a minute, we are not anywhere near as big as NY! WTF!
I think Indianapolis needs to immediately conduct an AUDIT of the finances and an AUDIT of the Crime Stats Frank Straub is providing. Why did he take them away from the Police Department? I think this thread revealed that answer. Frank Straub is bad for Indianapolis.
Your connection to the lawsuit wasn't working, but I found it at:
ReplyDeletehttp://schoolcraftjustice.com/SchoolcraftAmended.pdf
Wow! This appears to be corruption like we've never known before...sending enemies to the insane asylum is like something we read about that was done 50 years ago in Communist countries.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2Mm9HXD4cXA
ReplyDeleteNEW YORK (WABC) -- In an exclusive interview, a 19-year veteran of the NYPD describes widespread MANIPULATION of crime reports at the 100th Precinct in Queens. The sergeant says when he blew the whistle on the routine fudging of crimes, the department retaliated and transferred him to a midnight shift at Bronx Central.
ReplyDeleteSergeant Robert Borrelli spent weeks with Eyewitness News, examining hours of audio tape and numerous crime reports.
It is proof, he says, that the Rockaway precinct where he was a supervisor has been downgrading felonies to make crime look low and top brass look good.
Borrelli says the NYPD has left him with no choice but to go public after months of ignoring his allegations of routine misclassification of crimes at the precinct.
He says the pressure there to manipulate crime reports has become unbearable.
"I just couldn't take it anymore," he said. "There came a point I finally broke, and I'm like you know this has to stop."
So, last May, Borrelli started handing over dozens of crime reports to the NYPD's Quality Assurance Division, whose job it is to ensure the accuracy of crime stats.
The reports, he claims, amounted to smoking gun - evidence of intentional, routine downgrading of crimes.
"They're constantly changing the classification to DOWNGRADE CRIMES so they're not tracked," he said. "It goes under the radar according to the FBI crime stats."
Eyewitness News asked if it meant the NYPD was trying to bury the serious crimes?
"That's correct," said Borrelli.
For example, an incident from last August in which an angry customer fired four shots at a cab driver, Borrelli says is a clear case of felony assault.
"I was the supervisor on the scene," he said. "I made the determination what we had, I appropriately charged the proper crime attempted assault 1. It was later changed, believe the following morning, someone lined it out and changed it to reckless endangerment."
As a less serious crime, it did not have to be reported to the FBI.
In another case, the sergeant claims a felony burglary was downgraded to criminal mischief after an officer coached the victim to exclude from the crime report that her ex-boyfriend stole two flat screen TVs from her apartment.
Borrelli was recording when he called the victim to ask why the report never mentions the stolen televisionsor the boyfriend's unlawful entry. Here is an excerpt of the conversation:
Borrelli: "Did he have permission to be there?"
Victim: "No."
Borrelli: "How come he had access to the keys though?"
Victim: "Because he took them from me."
Borrelli: "Did he also take two flat screen TVs out of your apartment?"
Victim: "Yes, yes."
Borrelli: "Did you write that in the report?"
Victim: "I didn't give every detail because they said make it short and sweet. They said write down he came into home, smashed your stuff and that was it. So I write down what they told me too."
Borrelli says Quality Assurance admitted in a secret taped conversation that some of the reports he gave to them had been misclassified. Here is part of that conversation:
Borrelli: "Now, do you think kind of what I'm saying is being corroborated?"
DeleteQuality Assurance Inspector: "We have a couple of misclasses, obviously, based on some of your calls. We have misclass on crimes, we have misclass on domestic. So we have some misclasses."
The NYPD says Borelli's allegations of widespread downgrading have been unsubstantiated by a Quality Assurance audit at the 100th Precinct.
They found out of 925 audited crime reports, just 17 had been misclassified.
But of the reports Borelli fed to Quality Assurance, four of them were determined to be misclassified.
"They wanted to shut me up," he said.
Borrelli is no longer able to feed misclassified reports to Quality Assurance.
Suddenly and without explanation, he was recently transferred out of the precinct where he had been a supervisor for nearly a decade to the midnight shift at the Bronx courthouse.
"They needed to isolate me," Borelli said. "They needed to contain me, so they transferred me out to remove me from access to the complaint reports that I was giving to Quality Assurance on a daily basis."
Borrelli has also been hit with discipline charges for an argument with an officer.
Hi Indy,
ReplyDeleteWelcome to the wild world of Compstat. Beside New York City, us law enforcement folks in Chicago also have been force fed this crap. Many year ago our past superinetendents brought Compstat to Chicago but changed the name. We called it smoke and mirrors.
Now we get a new Superintendent from New York via New Jersey who thinks he now brought Compstat to Chicago.
They keep telling the public crime is down but Murders are off the charts here. Shootings are the norm but if no one is hit downgrade the crime......
It looks like NYPD has the rank and file telling the truth so they strip the officers or supervisors to keep them quite...... Here in Chicago the superintendent has forced all the older bosses out or told them to sit down and shut up. The same superintendent thinks weather has nothing to do with crime?
Watch you ass and document yourself AND GO HOME AT THE END OF YOUR TOUR OF DUTY
Good report Pit. Just be carefull and watch your back. You are going to start touching nerves if the guys start commenting on here much. Lots of dirt to expose. The guys are just wary of posting as the super spy unit of Straubs will hunt us down.
ReplyDeleteWill post more later. Keep the articles coming as you are on to some good reporting. There are not many reporters left in this town.
Indy, my heart goes out to all of you law enforcement officers. Our new Supt. and his BS compstat is steadily destroying our department. Our former commanding officer, who was loved and respected by our unit, was recently replaced by a spineless, micro manager, who faints at the first sign of stress. This is supposed to be a Police leader? He may not know how to spot or stop a crime, but boy, does he write pretty reports. Sadly, he is not the exception of our pathetic command staff, but the norm. Police Departments are NOT businessess and should not be run like them.
ReplyDeleteA few questions PoliPit:
ReplyDeleteA) Obviously the officer working the street decides how these reports/crimes get initially titled and/or classified. Who signs off on those reports? I'm assuming management has the ability to change and/or retitle the reports submitted because I recall Straub saying as much last summer.
B) If we change the way that crime gets reported, are we also changing the way that crime is getting investigated? I have always seen the function of the police as more crime solvers than crime preventers. If we're truly looking at the effectiveness of a police department, we need to be looking at clearance/conviction rates. We need to look at how many of these repeat offenders have already been convicted on multiple occasions of multiple crimes, and we need effective programs to follow up with VICTIMS instead of SUSPECTS.
C) Assuming the mechanisms are in place to change the UCR Classification of crimes, is there a paper trail that could be audited? Who is the final rubber stamp/signature before these numbers get submitted?
D) I've read that we haven't submitted crime data to the FBI for quite some time now. Is this common? Did we regularly report data before Straub came to town?
In reading the Schoolcraft lawsuit (thank you very much for the link BTW), it seems blatantly obvious that this manipulation was going on. I think Straub would have learned from transgressions committed by his predecessors and found a way far more insipid and not quite as greedy to make his numbers more attractive. As long as he's clever about it, it would be very extremely easy to massage a few case reports here and there that are 50/50 into always being one thing or the other. It would also be very hard to catch, which is why TRUST is paramount in these positions of authority.
I understand the argument that his arrogance may preclude him from learning from others, but if there's anything a politician is good at it's covering their tail.
Mr. Graham RAYMAN is the award-winning Village Voice reporter who broke the NYPD scandal concerning WHISTLEBLOWER Officer Adrian Schoolcraft, 70th Pct. NYPD. Officer Schoolcraft is currently suing the City of New York for up to $50,000,000.00.
ReplyDeleteAny officers with documented information on CompStat "cooking the books" on Part I Index Crimes, you may contact Mr. Rayman via eMail at: GRayman@VillageVoice.com
Mention that the Public Safety Director is a former NYPD Deputy Commissioner in the email.
He has assured that your eMail will be held as strictly CONFIDENTIAL.